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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27239503">I Want to Wake Up in a City That Doesn't Sleep</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kylenne/pseuds/Kylenne'>Kylenne</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Torn From the Heavens: A Warden Reborn [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Final Fantasy XIV</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Female Character of Color, Black Female Character, Everybody Lives, Gisele Surana (OC), Multi, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Polyamory</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:48:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>18,137</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27239503</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kylenne/pseuds/Kylenne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>With the final defeat of the last of the Unsundered Ascians, the Eighth Umbral Calamity was averted, and the Scions of the Seventh Dawn have finally found a way home to their own world. As they make their final farewells to the people of Norvandt, Gisele ventures forth to Amaurot one last time to make one of her own--and what she discovers there will irrevocably change the Scions forever.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Warrior of Light</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Torn From the Heavens: A Warden Reborn [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1591174</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I Want to Wake Up in a City That Doesn't Sleep</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>Though the world be sundered and our souls set adrift, where you walk, my dearest friend, fate shall surely follow.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele bid her erstwhile comrades not to wait for her, but to continue on to the Crystarium, for there was one place in Norvrandt to which she had not yet made her farewells. It was not for the Exarch’s sake, of a surety, but her own, that her heart bid her return a final time to a place beyond even her footsteps, traversing between worlds. The one place upon this shard that she would remember with all her heart, even should they not understand why—nor she, entirely, truth be told.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nonetheless, she closed her eyes, and drifted upon the Aether, down and down...far beneath the waves of Kholusia.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she opened them once more, the twinkling lights of Amaurot greeted her as soft beacons of warmth in the cold stillness, and her senses were once more filled with the now familiar brine of the Tempest, with the taste of salt upon her lips. The illusion would fade, in time, they said, now that its loving keeper was gone; already, dawn’s light had pierced the shadows of this city of endless night, a light she herself had shone when she bested its creator, and the light of the sun rose within the depths. Thus, so illumined, would the greatest enchantment that Gisele had ever beheld—in three worlds—wither away, its prodigious aether scattered to return to the waves which would reclaim it. And none should be left to mourn it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>None, save Gisele. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And so she walked the impossibly pristine streets at a slow, stately pace, a memoriam in motion. Already, she noted fewer phantoms of the Ancients along its grand, tree-lined promenade; some few remained locked in their eternal stasis, conversing with one another, but not nearly so many as before. Blessedly, the monsters seemed entirely gone, and so she had no need for the blade which rested strapped to her back. And as she traversed those silent streets, she craned her neck to look ever upward, at needles of stone and steel which towered high above the sea floor in all their grace and majesty. They seemed endless, as always, taller even than Ishgard’s mighty, gothic spires; their lights gleamed as far as the eye could see, beyond the most distant horizon. She turned the corner onto a broad plaza, marveling once more at wrought iron archways with their delicate trellis work, the sea-glass which refracted the soft cerulean glow of gleaming pillars. Every carved stone, every length of steel in this place was a work of art. All of this, she beheld; as she inhaled deeply the scent of perfectly manicured grass, impossibly green, and brushed her fingers against violet leaves upon trees that were little more than silent guardians, with no breeze to rustle them. It was so real, and yet not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Why had she come here, beyond a simple yearning to know for a final time the haunting beauty of this place, this city of the dead, that she might forever etch it upon her memory--without the fires which once burned so terrible? Mayhap to fulfill a promise, but there was somewhat more to the ache within Gisele’s heart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She could not find Hythlodaeus, try though she might; mayhap the souls which flittered across this brilliant simulacrum had simply begun to fade, the first to wither with the enchantment, and he was absent from his usual haunts, with his purpose so fulfilled. The thought left her more melancholy than she might have believed, that his gift to her should, all unknowing, be the last time they would converse.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But then, she heard the faintest whisper of a haunting melody, drifting in the still air, and stopped before the building from which it emanated. She gazed high up, recalling this particular tower as the one she’d first beheld, upon that incredible introduction to Amaurot. Then, Emet-Selch had left the door open, so to speak, in invitation to Gisele and Gisele alone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now, it stood ajar.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Through it, she slipped, and into a cavernous hall. The marble floor was pristine, upon which the clicking of her thick heels sounded like rhythmic claps of thunder, echoing off the enormous walls. And the melody which lured her through the door grew louder with each step, unalloyed in its romance, and she strained to place it, for it seemed maddeningly familiar. As she crossed the endless space, she noted but one furnishing in this massive chamber, at its far end: a grand piano, the source of that romantic melody, with a robed Ancient seated at the keys—one far smaller than the rest of their brethren, and her heart nearly stopped within her breast. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mayhap </span>
  <em>
    <span>he</span>
  </em>
  <span> was the one she hoped to find here, in this long forgotten city of the dead—hoping against hope, despite everything, that he yet endured with it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You came, then, after all. Perhaps I should have known you would. But why, oh Heroine?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele’s frozen heart pounded thunderously within her ears, at the sound of that voice—a voice she’d once grieved with no small sorrow to never hear again. That she heard it once more filled her with a sudden, incalculable relief. All unthinking, her hand reached for the auracite pendant about her neck—the slender violet crystal with delicate gold filigree wrought with the greatest love and care by her own artisan’s touch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I made you a promise,” she said, her slender fingers wrapping about the crystal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, you are late, my dear. But I shall forgive it—just the once.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Emet-Selch withdrew his gloved hands from the keys, and he turned to her, lowering the deep cowl. His face was no longer concealed by the scarlet mask of his exalted station; before her sat only the former Garlean Emperor in the prime of his youthful, handsome vigor, the now-familiar smirk etched upon his lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She crossed the distance to him without thinking, her feet seemingly moving of their own volition, flying as though in a corps-a-corps. And, just as suddenly, she stopped before the instrument of most exquisite ebony, her blood grown cold with a sudden, cruel fear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I beg you tell me I have not stumbled into a dream from which I shall surely awaken,” she whispered softly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The familiar serpentine smirk faded from his pouting lips, then, and they curved into a smile unwontedly gentle and warm. “You have not,” he said softly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It only left Gisele with more questions, of a surety. A thousand upon thousand of them swirled within her keen mind, stumbling over one another, until her eloquence failed her and she found no word but one to name the fulcrum of it, the heart of them all, the first on the tongue of every child, every mage and scholar, and every lover, most of all her:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Why</span>
  </em>
  <span>…?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Emet-Selch smiled at her. “Because you wished it so, with all your heart.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t understand…” Gisele confessed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sighed his signature long-suffering sigh, and Gisele nearly wanted to laugh—with joy, namely, that she should behold it once more despite everything. Of a surety, the slightest, most inconsequential of his gestures sparked warmth within her heart for which she held no explanation save one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was so wonderful to see him again, even if it should only be this once, Gisele thought. But she prayed it was not. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did Hythlodaeus not explain it to you?” Emet-Selch said, rolling his eyes in exasperation. “His infuriating penchant for riddles was always the death of me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He spoke to me of the Fourteenth seat, and a crystal which should not be,” Gisele said. “He spoke to me of the magicks which were woven into it. I called upon them, twice: once to summon my lost comrades from beyond the Rift—from Thedas—and again, when Elidibus bound us by his power in that place between time, the eldritch Void between life and death.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Emet-Selch grinned. “And there is your answer.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But, the Lightwardens…our Blade of Light—” she began, but she stopped mid-sentence, startled out of it by the sensation of his silk-gloved hand reaching out to her, resting upon the auracite pendant. It was warm and tender against her heart, lightly cupping the upper curve of her breast, and she thought she might crumble entirely beneath his touch; it was then she realized how much she truly craved it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You kept this close to your heart,” he said, soft and low, his thumb tracing the delicate filigree. “And you brought the crystal upon it, just as Hythlodaeus instructed you. What did you </span>
  <em>
    <span>think</span>
  </em>
  <span> would happen, should you bring Hades to the shores of the Underworld, and there so reunite the wayward stars?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele’s violet eyes grew wide and startled at Emet-Selch’s echo of Hythlodaeus’ words, when last she stood in the forgotten city, and she followed the bread crumb trail of shining stones to him:</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I would see if you can reunite the wayward stars.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“It would defy everything we have ever known,” Gisele said firmly. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Everything</span>
  </em>
  <span> regarding the nature of the soul, of the Ascians.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Emet-Selch snickered, and the smirk returned. “My, aren’t we cocksure? Two of the Unsundered fall to your hand and of a moment you deem yourself sage keeper of our secrets. Tis any wonder your dear Mother dragged you to Ul’dah and </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> Sharlayan.” The smirk fell as quickly as it came. “That you should ask these things disappoints me, Gisele. You of all people should </span>
  <em>
    <span>know</span>
  </em>
  <span> why I yet stand before you. How, then, did you pry the battered soul of your beloved Azure Dragoon from the unyielding clutches of Nidhogg’s vengeful shade?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele answered without a moment’s hesitation, or need for thought. “Because my love for him would not permit anything else. Estinien himself said it, that he heard my voice upon the Steps of Faith, and he was able to wrest back even a little control, that Alphinaud and I and our comrades could pry the Eyes from his armor.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, of course, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>you called to him</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Emet-Selch said with a firm insistence, “and he answered. As did I, when you made your wish in the Void. The particulars are quite irrelevant.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not to me,” Gisele countered. “I have not the words to express my gratitude, that you should so come to my aid, in my hour of gravest need. You saved my life, and the lives of those so dear to me. But though I have studied and mastered countless arts of the arcane, it is simply beyond my ken that such a thing could be. The collected, distilled aether of the Lightwardens, made manifest in the shape of Ardbert’s axe, should have rendered it impossible for you to take form once more. I do not question your candor, for you have never dissembled nor ever played me false even should you not tell me the whole of the truth, but what you describe is quite impossible by any law of metaphysics with which I am familiar.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Emet-Selch lifted his hand from the auracite—</span>
  <em>
    <span>his</span>
  </em>
  <span> auracite--and raised it to rest against Gisele’s cheek, cradling her face within his silk-sheathed palm, and she could have wept for the tenderness in his touch, even as her pulse quickened beneath it, her cheek grown flush with warmth. “You stood upon the precipice of annihilation, you and your comrades. And I could not bear it. Is it not enough that I should hear your desperate cry, and answer it? Why, now, do you doubt the power of your heart? Why, now, do you believe it so feeble? When have you ever given a care for what might or might not be possible, where it is so concerned?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He laid her bare, Emet-Selch did, with such heartfelt words; but it was his eyes, shining with unshed tears and the deepest affection, which silenced the inquisitive, analytical part of her mind; the clever apprentice always finding the breach in the arguments of her peers and even the enchanters who trained her. And in so doing, he reminded her that it was not that powerful sorceress who made the greater sum of who she was, but rather the lover, the dreamer who so often made true what others might deem impossible, by the strength of her conviction and boundless, limitless power of her heart. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Love always found a way, did it not?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hades,” was all she found strength to say, her voice cracking upon his true name. She paused then, lowering her eyes upon the sunstone crystal within her palm for a long moment, tracing its namesake star etched upon it in gold, and another connection was made within her mind. “There is somewhat which has haunted my thoughts ’ere we fought within the Dying Gasp, beyond this place,” she said suddenly, lifting her gaze to meet his, soft and searching. “I would have an answer, if it please you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Emet-Selch nodded, his golden eyes afire with curiosity. “Of what do you speak, my dear?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele swallowed hard a moment, furrowing her silvery brow as she chose her words with great care. “In your more…eldritch…form, I spied a great many masks affixed to your person, and most were faceless. I presumed them representations of your fallen brethren. But I also spied masks bearing the distinct features of a woman’s face wrought in crimson, again and again. Who was she?” she finally asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Emet-Selch closed his eyes a moment, his long lashes fluttering. “She who shone brightest in a veritable constellation of stars—always. Always.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele’s fingers curled about the crystal she held, her palm damp with sweat as she did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Was her name Azem?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When his eyes opened, they were heartbreakingly soft, and he smiled. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Finally</span>
  </em>
  <span>, you ask the right question. No, my dear; Azem was her </span>
  <em>
    <span>title</span>
  </em>
  <span>, the style of her office within the Convocation, even as Emet-Selch was mine. But her </span>
  <em>
    <span>name</span>
  </em>
  <span> was Müllenkamp,” he replied, and it seemed to Gisele that she had never heard the irreverent Ascian speak a name as though he were uttering a prayer, save that of his shackled Master, until he spoke the name of that woman. He lifted his other hand to caress Gisele’s other cheek, to cradle her face within his strong hands, and firmly drew his thumbs along her jawline. “And she was </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had long suspected as such, Gisele did: that the beautiful face memorialized upon Hades’ very armor should be that of the mysterious Fourteenth member of the Convocation of which Hythlodaeus spoke so fondly, the one who defected as a matter of conscience rather than be a party to the summoning of Zodiark and all the blood and death such a heinous act would require. Hythlodaeus’ own description of the woman as one quite dear to Emet had haunted her ever since he revealed it, not the least of which because he implied she and this ancient woman were one and the same. And it haunted her yet more, when his enigmatic words all but confirmed it, upon the gift he made of her crystal to Gisele.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still, it was another matter entirely to hear it said from the mouth of the one called Angel of Truth. Gisele trembled in his grasp, her mind reeling from the implications of it all. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You loved her,” Gisele said, her voice scarcely more than a whisper, and one filled with awe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“With everything I was, and am. Body, heart, and soul,” Emet-Selch said simply. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A sharp, telltale pain suddenly pierced Gisele’s temple, and she clutched her head, even as she clamped her eyes shut against the blinding light which flooded before them, sinking her consciousness down, down, into...</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>A spacious, well-appointed penthouse in the Achora Heights, sleek, yet warm and inviting, filled with artfully arranged artifacts from a myriad of travels and adventures. Hades sits at the large black piano in the salon, his long, slender fingers masterfully gliding across ivory keys as is his wont and pleasure. Dark and beautiful as the night sky, the woman lifts her voice in accompaniment, a perfect mezzo-soprano counterpoint, as she always does when he plays their favorite song: a soft ballad, dreamy and romantic. Both are bereft of mask and robe, per custom in the privacy of loved ones, and garbed exquisitely: she in her favored crimson, he in violet. A nearby spray of lights, formed in the fashion of a tree, illumines his soft features, setting specks of gold in the thick, silver hair cresting as a waterfall to his narrow waist; this same light is reflected in the gleam of the gold which adorns her long, svelte limbs and raven-black dreadlocks, but it is naught compared to the glow shining from within her when he smiles at her. For a singular moment of perfection, it seems as though the world in all its madness has stood still, and only for them; only for the elegance of their song.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Their blissful harmony ends, as it so often does, with a final caress of the ivory, but Hades sighs in content. He turns to her after a long moment, a pleading look within his dark eyes.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Have you contemplated the matter further, love?” he asks her.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Yes. I say to you what I said to the rest of them: that this is madness, that this is not who we are as a people, and if this madness proceeds apace then we shall have truly lost who we are, and would no longer deserve to be the stewards of this star besides. He is a </span>
  </em>
  <span>child</span>
  <em>
    <span>, Hades! A child! How many more should this ravenous demon you would call a god demand to avert the next calamity? How much more innocent blood should be spilled in the name of salvation? Any salvation which would demand it is no true salvation, to mine eyes.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“And so you seek to cast your lot with Venat’s treasonous ilk, at the last?” </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Never! For they are as deluded as the Convocation they so oppose. A star cannot be at odds with itself and hope to survive. Nay, Hades…neither Zodiark, nor this Hydaelyn the dissidents so propose, shall deliver us from the Calamity. What I seek is no less than the very source of it, to rid us of the threat once and for all.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Hades fair leaps to his feet and takes her by the shoulders, his dark eyes wild and incredulous. “You seek to silence the Sound?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“As surely as the sun does rise in the east.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“And you would dare name the Convocation’s design madness. Such a thing would be a reckless, foolhardy ambition even for you, Müllenkamp. To behold the very presence of that Sound would destroy you. You know this well.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“I do—and if there should be a blood price required, then let it be the one, and not the many. I would pay it gladly to see our people saved, to see the people of this Star saved.” Müllenkamp chuckles softly then, with a wry expression upon her full lips. “Besides…you, who countenanced the willing sacrifice of fully half our people, would now plead mercy for a single woman who would do the same?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And then he pulls her into the tightest of embraces, his trembling hands stroking her dark locs again and again. “For </span>
  </em>
  <span>this </span>
  <em>
    <span>woman? Always,” Hades says, his voice cracking under the weight of his concern. “Always.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Müllenkamp smiles.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Be not afraid, my love. For the Traveler always finds her way home, does she not?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>She parts his trembling lips with her own, silencing his objections as only she can. And he is helpless before it, always so helpless in her arms. He surrenders to his passions, as only he does.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>When she at last gently extricates herself from his embrace, her robe she spurns, as she so often does when venturing beyond the bounds of the City. She goes her own way, his Müllenkamp, for she has always danced to the song of her own soul. But the mask she takes, affixing it into place, its myriad dazzling jewels glinting in the lamp light.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Farewell, o Emet-Selch…my dearest Hades. I shall return anon.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Panic rises within him, as she strides to the gilded door.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Azem! Wait!”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The door to their flat shuts behind her.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Hades crumbles at last and sinks slowly to the cool marble floor, his face buried in his hands; the entirety of his body is racked with uncontrollable sobs as he weeps and weeps, as might a brokenhearted child.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Please, I beg of you...don’t go...”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The pain subsided, and Gisele’s consciousness returned to the present.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you seen, then, at last?” Emet-Selch asked her gently, his thumbs softly stroking the height of her cheekbones.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele nodded silently, for once not trusting in her own words.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And do you understand, now, how I returned to you? Do you know now why I fashioned the crystal you bear in your lovely hand, why I imbued it with the memory of ancient purpose and the warmth of your magicks, why I imprinted my very Aether with it, why it was I who came rushing to your side to save you, as I once could not? I would not fail you a second time, should fate be merciful even beyond its cruelty. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I could not.</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have mourned her all these long and lonely years,” Gisele whispered; her eyes welled with tears, which streamed down her face. “Oh, Emet...I…I’m so very sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Emet-Selch pulled her gently into his arms, holding her tightly against him as she wept into his shoulder; she clung to the heavy silk of his robes, and he stroked her silvery curls. “You’ve nothing for which to apologize, my dear, and certainly not to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele clung to him weeping nonetheless: for the beautiful song they once shared, that it should be forever silenced in an all too mortal an instant.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once the greater storm of her weeping passed, Emet-Selch spoke softly to her, as he held her in his arms. “I wronged you, Gisele. Then </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span> now. I was cruel, and undeniably selfish. In my overweening arrogance, I sought to use you, yes; to test you, to see if you were truly worthy of your office. And I would have raised you to it, should you but contain the Light as I so hoped you could. Of all the beloved dead, it was Azem whose return I yearned for most. And I thought nothing of your feelings, Gisele. I cared not a whit for the Viscountess Fortemps des Borel and the life she built in Ishgard, nor the companions she had made and held so dear. I would have taken you from all of it with not a hint of remorse, for she was naught but the broken husk of the woman I once loved. Honestly, when measured against all I have wrought in the name of restoring our people, it seems but a minor crime. But it is one for which I most sincerely repent.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele sighed. “Such is the very nature of tempering. I cannot fault you your intentions, for I cannot in good conscience say I would not do the same, if I could be reunited with one I had loved and lost and grieved for so long. But Zodiark took that love you felt for Azem, and Hythlodaeus, and Elidibus and all the rest, and he smelted it and forged it a weapon, because He could do no less given His own nature and the purpose with which you summoned Him,” she said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How astutely you should grasp such a notion, but you were always a heartseer, thus. And how delightfully ironic indeed that of us all, it was you, fragmented as you were, that should so honor your seat as we never could, Unsundered though </span>
  <em>
    <span>we</span>
  </em>
  <span> were. Not </span>
  <em>
    <span>so</span>
  </em>
  <span> much, though, should I think overmuch on it. You truly were always the best of us, the very heart of us, our conscience…mayhap that is why we so lost our way. But it is a clearer thing to see, now, with His scales pulled from my eyes, and my vision unclouded at last.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are no longer tempered, then?” Gisele asked, a bit startled at the implication of his words.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her ears rung clarion with the sound of his sardonic laughter, though it was far warmer than she remembered it to be. “Not one bit! Tis a queer and unsettling thing, to realize how subtly my own thoughts were turned against me. Oh, I knew we were tempered, my dear…I knew. But I knew not what that truly meant until now--now that I am not.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What does it mean to you, then, Emet-Sel—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Emet-Selch’s finger drifted across her cheek, to press against her lips. “Please, Gisele: if you would grant me nothing else, I abjure you to cease calling me that. ‘Emet’ if you must, for it sounds pleasing from your lips. But I would ask you to call me by my name, and not the title. It rather makes my skin crawl now, for some reason. And I would lay myself bare to you, wholly and without pretense.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Very well, Hades,” Gisele said, with a gentle smile, making certain to emphasize the final word. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You pay me a kindness I don’t deserve to say it with such affection,” Hades said softly, and she could have sworn she saw a faint hint of crimson creep into his alabaster skin. “But, the generosity and guilelessness of your heart is perhaps why such affection blossomed within me, for you, despite everything.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You speak of Müllenkamp?” she asked.</span>
</p><p><span>Hades shook his head. “Oh, I do not deny it, love. I saw much of her in you, and it intrigued me. But you mean more to me than the promise of my lost Azem—far more—and if I might be candid, you always have, and I only understand it now that my will is truly my own. My heart was made a stone in grief, and you made it bleed for the first time in decades. I could stand here for an age endlessly recounting each and every one of your charms, everything that yet stirred the depths of this yearning I feel for you beyond the mere shade of your soul. But it matters not in the end. What matters is that it is </span><em><span>you</span></em><span> who I yearn for. It is you who I see before me--not Azem, and not Müllenkamp. Lady Gisele Surana Fortemps des Borel, Champion of Hydaelyn, Antecedent of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, heroine of a thousand names. </span><em><span>And I love</span></em> <em><span>you.</span></em><span>”</span></p><p>
  <span>Gisele’s breath hitched as Hades lowered his pouting mouth to her own; helplessly, she clung to him, surrendering to her own longing, and lost herself in his lanky arms. He parted the fullness of her lips with an eager tongue that tasted faintly, as always, of pomegranate wine; she leaned into him, and caressed it with her own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was far from the first time he’d kissed her; but it </span>
  <em>
    <span>felt</span>
  </em>
  <span> that way, and perhaps it was, for the night he came into her chambers at the Pendants and they’d made love was entirely different than this. Then, there was aught in him that hungered something fierce and terrible, desperate for a mere inkling of respite, anything to fill the gaping void of grief within him. He drowned himself in her then, and mayhap hated himself a little for it. Gisele rather foolishly believed it a turning point in their </span>
  <em>
    <span>grand jeu </span>
  </em>
  <span>to decide the fate of two worlds, and it was with uncharacteristic naïveté that she did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then, he broke her heart atop Mt Gulg.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This was different. And somewhat felt mended within her, some long forgotten thread which frayed woven back into the tapestry of her heart where it belonged.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades clung to her for a long while, kissing her again and again; betimes a quick taste of her lips, others long and sensuous. For so eloquent a pair, in the last and at the least, no further words were required. Gisele simply drank of his love, offered so freely, as though she were dying of thirst in the Sagolii Sands. And he held her as though he never had before, as though he were afraid she would slip through his fingers if he but let go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After an age of this, he at last pulled away from her—and with great reluctance, Gisele noted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go home to your friends, my Sorceress of the Dark. But take with you my love, always,” Hades said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele swallowed hard, already feeling painfully bereft and reaching for him even as he pulled away. “What shall become of you? Shall I ever see you again?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades shrugged rather nonchalantly. “Who’s to say, really? Why don’t you ask your cards.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You delightfully insufferable old queen,” Gisele chuckled lightly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, I do so try.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades swept a characteristically grandiose bow before her, and with his back still bent low, gazed up to wink at her with a cheeky little grin, which set her to giggling despite herself. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Be serious, you imp,” Gisele said, primly folding her arms across her chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And when Hades rose upright, the casual mischief had faded from his eyes, but none of the affection. “I </span>
  <em>
    <span>am</span>
  </em>
  <span>, my darling. What you ask of me has, truthfully, no resolute answer. A great deal of it rests upon things quite beyond my control. But were it up to my will alone, this would not be our final parting. I do not wish it to be—and not merely for the memory of the woman you once were, mind. Seek me in the place you least expect, and I shall be there, I promise no more and no less than that,” he said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then, he was gone.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Some days following the Scions’ return to Source, Gisele and Haurchefant set out early one morning and ventured forth to Ishgard, bearing with them much needed supplies on behalf of the Scions for the ongoing reconstruction efforts in the Firmament. It was a political necessity, of course, to foster continued good relations between the order and the High Houses, of a surety—but it was also a grand excuse to mark Haurchefant’s triumphant return home, after being stranded for so long on the First. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Naturally, it was quite the splendid, extravagant luncheon set for them at home in Fortemps Manor; Francel de Haillenarte fair flew with them to the manor when he heard they’d returned, and at first Gisele truthfully could not say whether he or Artoirel were happier to see Haurchefant. Mayhap Francel, for Gisele excused herself to powder her nose following the dessert course only to spy the two of them kissing rather passionately in the corridor leading to Haurchefant’s chambers, Francel with his back pushed up against the wall and clinging to Haurchefant as though he were drowning. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele smiled at the sight of it, her face grown flushed and warm as her heart, and instead she slipped away for a spot of chess with Edmont in the solarium. Much like old times, he beat her soundly, but she did not mind it, for it was his soothing company she sought more than true competition. Very little surprised the old retired count anymore, where his adventurous daughter-in-law was concerned, but even he raised his brow a time or two at the tales Gisele spun of their heroics upon another world.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I went to Revenant’s Toll more times than I can count,” Edmont confessed. “But Mistress Baldesion would not permit me to see Haurchefant. She pled somewhat of Sharlayan esoterica, but I believe the young lady merely wished to spare my heart the sight of my son so stricken. Mistress Tataru deferred to her wisdom as a healer, and so I stopped.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele nodded. “Of a surety, it was a kindness which Krile paid you. Shortly before I was able to bring them home at last, I…looked in upon him and the others, in repose. It still haunts me, and I wish I had not. But they are hale and safely home now, united body and soul once more—including him—and that is all that matters.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The Fury surely watches over that lad,” Edmont said, chuckling before taking another sip of his tea. “Though he might yet be the death of me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mayhap none has served Her quite so well, father,” Gisele said, smiling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Indeed. That he should so rally the defenders of this Crystarium, and make of them knights worthy of our traditions…it fills my heart with tremendous pride, to hear of it. And though it grieves me to see him so far from home, and so often, he has honored the name of House Fortemps wherever he has brought our colors—as have you, my daughter,” Edmont said, returning her smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You move me, father,” Gisele said, lowering her lashes demurely, “and I—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She felt a sudden, low buzzing at her ear, and reached for her linkpearl. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Edmont stared at her sharply, his eyes full of concern.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Gisele.” </span>
  </em>
  <span>It was Estinien’s voice purred in her ear, through the pearl.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What is it, love?” Gisele asked aloud.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Pray forgive the intrusion, but you and Haurche need return to the Stones at once. We’ve…company.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele sighed deeply. She did not like the way he said that word. “Very well, we shall return anon.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Edmont chuckled again, with an affectionate grin. “No rest for the righteous, I suppose?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“None indeed,” Gisele said, with a sheepish smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Very well. Safe travels, then. And pray, give my love to Estinien, Alphinaud, and Ysayle—and Tataru.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele nodded. “Thank you, father. I shall.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To Haurchefant’s eternal credit, he was only slightly disheveled when Gisele politely rapped upon his chamber doors, and the heavy curtains were drawn about his bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, good! I was just about to come fetch you. Tataru just contacted me, and—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know. Estinien told me—of a sort,” Gisele said, sighing. “Haurche, I’m sorry I need take you from your lover’s arms. Pray, give Francel my sincerest apologies. I shall have to make it up to him somehow…mayhap I shall go a-gathering once more in the Diadem.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Haurchefant laughed a bit sheepishly. “He understands, I assure you, as do I. A Scion’s work is never done! Now, let’s be off then, shall we?”</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>The sun was setting low in the western horizon above Mor Dhona when Gisele and Haurchefant returned to Revenant’s Toll, and the Rising Stones. Truthfully, Gisele feared what she might find beyond the nondescript tavern door which led to the Scions’ sanctum. The others, they knew, had planned to go about their varied and myriad tasks, still adjusting to life back upon the Source, and making up for lost time, such that it was. Though the newest members of the order had no such considerations, they nonetheless kept busy as well, with Estinien conferring with Riol regarding the latest troubling reports from Garlemald, and Raha in no less deep a conference with Urianger, seeking his counsel on various arcane matters.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But that was before Estinien’s abrupt communiqué. And the Stones were quiet, eerily so, when Haurchefant opened the door to the sanctum for Gisele, and together they crossed the threshold. What awaited them both elicited a sharp hiss from the Ishgardian knight, and an incredulous gasp from his wife.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For none other than the Paragon they once knew as Emet-Selch—Hades himself—sat at the farthest table in the darkest corner of the lounge. Shed at last of his heavy Garlean brocade, he wore a finely spun shirt of deep violet silk, its sleeves cuffed neatly at his elbows to leave his surprisingly muscled forearms bare, and trousers of the inkiest black leather, with decorative laces tied up the sides. He’d leaned back in his chair, resting his arm upon the top of it, to prop his head against the wall, and his impossibly long legs were crossed rather casually. Gisele’s mouth grew dry at the sight of him, her heart racing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not the least of which because looming over him, as death’s own shadow, was Ser Estinien Wyrmblood des Fortemps et Borel, the deadly point of his lance aimed squarely at their unexpected guest’s heart. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Estinien! What is the meaning of this?” Gisele demanded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was searching for Thancred, and found </span>
  <em>
    <span>His Radiance</span>
  </em>
  <span> instead. He requested a parley, and we decided to wait until you returned,” Estinien said calmly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades sighed rather petulantly, with a long suffering roll of his eyes. “Honestly, do all Ishgardians think first with steel?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mayhap,” Haurchefant said a bit darkly, his hand hovering deliberately over the hilt of the sword sheathed at his belt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, so long as you don’t toss your shield at my face again. I’ve grown quite bored with that,” Hades remarked archly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have a care for your words then, Ascian, that I should find no reason to do so,” Haurchefant replied.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Gentlemen, please,” Gisele said firmly, her voice ringing with the timbre of command. “If you’ve quite finished swinging your members about, I would have you cease this at once. Estinien, stand down.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Estinien’s eyes grew hard as agates, and the tension in his sharp jaw was palpable. “But—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele stormed across the length of the tavern hall in but a few long strides, and pressed her hand down upon Nidhogg’s shaft, staring up at Estinien with eyes no less hard. “That was not a request, Estinien Wyrmblood, and I shall not say it a second time,” she said, low and soft.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stared back at her a long moment before raising the point of the spear, and pulling it away from Hades. “Bah!” he grunted, and turned his back to her, stalking over to the bar to lean against it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele hated doing it, in truth. But she would not see Hades held under guard when all he wanted was an honorable parley. No matter their history with him, they were better than this. She would not permit him to be so treated as a prisoner in this place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of a surety, the last place she’d expected.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She turned to him. “I bid you welcome to the Rising Stones, Hades. If you wish a parley, then I shall grant it to you, and we shall honor the strictures as such.” Gisele beckoned to Tataru, who’d spent the entirety of the tense standoff nervously behind the bar, wringing her tiny hands together. “Pray, prepare us a light refreshment, if you would?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tataru visibly relaxed a bit then, given a clear directive with which to occupy herself. “Oh! We just received a shipment of teas from the East Aldenard company, courtesy our old friend Hancock. I recall seeing persimmon, perhaps pomegranate. Will that do?” she asked, tilting her head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades’ golden eyes grew wide and sparkling. “Might I have a cup of the pomegranate, please?” he asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course. Tataru, please make us a pot,” Gisele asked politely. She turned then to her scowling husband, ignoring his pique for a moment. “Estinien, where are the others?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll get them,” Estinien said shortly, and stalked away from her without another word, deeper into the sanctum. She’d wounded his pride; Gisele knew him too well by halves, by now. She sighed a little to herself, vowing to speak with him later on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you, love,” Gisele said, for now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stopped only briefly in mid stride, turning his head back to her with only the briefest of nods.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It did not take long for the rest of the Scion inner court to assemble at the dragoon’s behest, and none looked terribly pleased to behold their sudden guest, though Y’shtola and Urianger wore enigmatic expressions by turns that hinted more of curiosity than anything, and Thancred fair seethed with scarcely checked fury. It was he who made the opening volley, as surely as a shot from his gunblade.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why are you here, Emet-Selch? And what, precisely do you want?” Thancred demanded. “I bid you choose your words with care, for I would kill you where you sit were it not for Gisele inexplicably asking otherwise.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades sighed deeply, taking a sip of his tea. “A mere opportunity to state my case for peace between us. No more, and no less. And should you reject my overtures, I shall quit this place and it shall be the last you see of me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We saw enough of your peace on the First, Ascian,” Thancred spat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is the well being of your beloved Antecedent, your precious heroine, not enough of an olive branch?” Hades asked, pouting. “Must you leave it to wither to die upon the vine, yet again?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Need I remind you that you were the one who choked the life from that branch in the first place, in your own city?” Thancred retorted. “We trusted you once before when you saved one of us, and we saw well how you repaid that trust. So pray forgive me my incredulity, but the time for parley, for talk of peace, was </span>
  <em>
    <span>before</span>
  </em>
  <span> you summarily tried to kill us all.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s got a point,” Alisaie muttered with a derisive snort, and Alphinaud nudged her with his elbow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alisaie,” he pleaded with her, and she snorted again, turning her head away from him. But then Alphinaud looked to Thancred, and Gisele. “My friends, if I may?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“By all means, Alphinaud. The floor is gladly yours,” Thancred said, spreading his hands wide.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alphinaud nodded, and crossed the room to stand opposite Hades’ seat at the table. “Emet-Selch…by all rights, you should not be here among us, and yet you are. Before we might fairly consider your offer, might you explain how such an impossibility has come to pass?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ve an astute mind, lad. Surely you must comprehend the concept of contingencies. One does not devise a scheme for the millennia without them, if one intends to succeed at it,” Hades replied. He paused a moment, drinking from his cup, with a little sigh of contentment. “This is quite excellent, indeed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You prepared for your own demise, then?” Alphinaud asked, his eyes grown wide. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades nodded solemnly to him. “We </span>
  <em>
    <span>were</span>
  </em>
  <span> in the final days, after all. Twas only sensible, really. But though the Convocation accounted for nearly every possibility when first we conceived of the Rejoining, I vowed to leave </span>
  <em>
    <span>nothing</span>
  </em>
  <span> to chance. I was also determined to keep a promise I made to someone who was quite dear to me, no matter our profound disagreements at the time,” he said. “Fortunately, I killed two birds with one quite literal stone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The Crystal of Azem,” Alphinaud mused aloud. “Of course. But how</span>
  <em>
    <span>? </span>
  </em>
  <span>When Gisele spoke to us of her battle with Elidibus, she mentioned the crystal was imbued with a powerful Amaurotine magick, which she was able to invoke in order to summon her Thedosian comrades from the Seventh Shard to battle alongside her. But I must confess a certain bemusement as to why it also managed to summon </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>, within the Void.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Urianger fair lit up at the mention of the constellation crystal which had consumed his waking thoughts, it seemed, since Gisele first spoke of it to him. “Crystals beareth memory, Master Alphinaud, as surely as they beareth aether. Of a surety, those of the Convocation seemeth the very font from which we fractured mortals have so learned to fashion those which house the secrets of our myriad Arts, bequeathed in gravest solemnity from Master to apprentice,” he said. “Might a Paragon imbue such a stone with somewhat of his life’s essence, that it might survive even should he pass to the Void?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Very good, Urianger,” Hades said approvingly. “Indeed, that is precisely what I did, among other things, when I fashioned a most forbidden crystal in remembrance of the brightest of us. It was not merely for sentimentality’s sake, but also to bestow the power to save those whom I cherished most, if I should fail in my mission, and perish before it be complete.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A message in a bottle, cast through time,” Alphinaud murmured. “Surely you must have understood how wholly unlikely it was that it would work? It nearly beggars belief, the sheer number of precise variables which would have needed to fall exactly into place, for this singular Fate to transpire.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Indeed, even a student of the Arcana might balk at such a synchronicity of Fate,” Urianger agreed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades’ expression turned wistful then, and for not the first time Gisele marveled at how very expressive his face was. For one who betimes cloaked himself in enigmas for little more than sheer enjoyment, he truly hid nothing. “You did not know Azem,” he said simply. “I did.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thancred sighed deeply. “Well, this is all fine and good, but what is it that you want from us? Why have you come here, Emet-Selch?” he demanded, once more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why must you all be so tedious?” Hades said, sighing rather petulantly, and Gisele stifled her smile at it. But he swirled his spoon inside the cup rather idly, then set it upon the saucer. His gaze lowered upon it for a long, long moment, before he spoke again, raising his pointed chin. “The boy spoke truthfully, upon the day of my defeat: <em>Emet-Selch is no more</em>. Now, I am as I once was long before this madness began, and that is quite simply Hades of Amaurot--though far older and perhaps a little wiser than the arrogant magus I once was. Perhaps that is the true blessing and curse of immortality by turns, that one should, in time, gain the wisdom one so desperately needed but a far sight too late.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And have you come to beg our forgiveness, then, with your newfound wisdom?” Thancred asked coldly. “That we should simply forget all that you wrought? Water under the bridge, let bygones be bygones, never mind the suffering your actions inflicted upon so many, and the sacrifices beyond counting made to stop you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Absolutely not,” Hades said firmly. “I dare not ask your forgiveness. I need not be lectured to know I do not deserve it, for I know it well, and far better than you ever could. As I know well that there is naught on life which I could offer as worthy recompense, for all me and mine have wrought in the name of those dearest to us. All I ask of you—of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn--is the opportunity to use this second chance afforded me, and to use it well. I would see what our successors might do, and aid you when and where I can, if I may. To serve as an ally, faithful and true. No more, and no less. I know well I have done naught by which to merit it, but I ask it nonetheless.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thancred stared at him; silence fell upon the room, as all gathered looked to one another in incredulity and disbelief, Gisele perhaps most of all, for there was absolutely no mistaking what Hades was asking of them. One did not especially need to read between the lines to know it:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades, the Ascian Paragon once known as Emet-Selch, and the founding Emperor Solus zos Galvus of Garlemald, wished to join the Scions of the Seventh Dawn.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How dare you,” Alisaie spat, her hands curled into fists, and Alphinaud quickly—and prudently—stepped in front of her, firmly gripping her shoulders, to hold her at bay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Alisaie!” he said sharply.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let go of me, for hells’ sake!” Alisaie cried, trying in vain to wriggle out of her brother’s grasp. “He would make a mockery of Grandfather’s memory even by asking such a farce!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Grandfather stood for peace, more than anything,” Alphinaud said firmly, standing his ground. “And he would not have countenanced </span>
  <em>
    <span>decking</span>
  </em>
  <span> anyone in a negotiation!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Will the both of you </span>
  <em>
    <span>please</span>
  </em>
  <span> settle down?” Y'shtola interjected, in the tone which quite thoroughly put the fear of the Twelve into anyone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The twins instantly quieted, with Alisaie leaning back against the wall with a sulking grunt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you,” Y’shtola said, with a prim smile. “Gisele? It would appear we have much to discuss.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele nodded. “Indeed we do,” she agreed. Turning to Hades—who’d watched the twins’ bickering unfold while sipping his tea with no small amount of amusement glinting in his golden eyes—she gazed long upon him. “The title of Antecedent has become largely a ceremonial one since Minfilia’s ascension, Hades. The Scions are akin to a counsel, with each member having equal weight in our direction. I can but present your proposal for debate,” she explained to him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Which is all I ask,” Hades said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She nodded once more, then one by one looked to her comrades, such as they were. “I would hear your thoughts before I share mine, my friends,” Gisele said. “I would know your minds without my influence. What say you on the matter of Hades of Amaurot? Shall we accept his petition to join our number?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thancred snorted in derision, folding his arms against his chest as he leaned back against the bar counter. “The very notion is the finest absurdity I’ve ever heard. That Emet-Selch—or Hades, whatever he styles himself now—should ask to join the very order which has been sworn to thwart his kind’s mad schemes to end the world and destroy us all? The most twisted of jests,” he said matter-of-factly. “The Scions were formed to protect Eorzea from the likes of him. The only logical reason he should seek to join us is to unravel us from within. And I would rather not take that manner of viper to my breast, thank you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It came as no surprise, really, and should not have, that Thancred should so feel this way. Gisele rather expected it, and was as yet grateful that he should be the first to speak and voice his objections. Of a surety, she knew her friends as she knew her own heart, or so she believed, and held strong suspicions of how each of them would feel. Allowing them to say their peace, to empathize with them, would give her the time needed she needed to formulate her own response, such that it was. For Gisele was not so naive to believe they did not know where the sympathies of her heart lay, where Hades was concerned. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Time, of a surety, was what she needed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele glanced then to Ysayle, perhaps the one among their number who might prove to be Hades’ greatest sympathizer, given her own past. “What say you, my love?” she asked solemnly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Ysayle lowered her eyes a moment, a pensive hand held to her heart, before she raised her icy blue gaze to meet that of Hades with a furrowed brow. “I, too, suffered the manipulations of your kind long before I was summoned to the First. But I cannot well speak against this in good conscience, for there is little difference between you and I, save the length and the scope of our machinations. How could I aim my own blood-stained finger at you in recrimination? Saint preserve me but I, too, once believed my intentions were pure, and that noble ends justified cruel and savage means—until I met Gisele. Because of her, I was granted a second chance I do not deserve, a chance to atone which I have seized with all that I am. And I cannot help but believe now as I did then that such chances must be seized, for Fate does not often gift them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You did not consign seven worlds entire to utter annihilation in pursuit of your aim, Ysayle,” Thancred countered. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Seven worlds! </span>
  </em>
  <span>And this one brought to the brink an eighth time. In the Exarch’s future, he succeeded. What an incalculable toll, all because he and his ilk viewed us as little but expendable insects, acceptable sacrifices to restore their perfect world.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The lives of the people in Foundation meant no less for being fewer to those who survived to mourn them,” Ysayle argued. “And I viewed them as acceptable casualties in my own righteous crusade, until I saw the price I so callously demanded they pay, at last with mine own eyes. I did not have tempering to blame for my callousness, either. Only my own deluded self-righteousness.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He tried to kill us!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“As did I!” Ysayle snapped. “Have you forgotten Snowcloak and the Amphitheatre so quickly? And what of your supply caravans? I was as avowed an enemy of the Scions as the Holy See, for I saw you then as little more than the Archbishop’s pawns. And yet you still embraced me as a sister, Thancred. You forgave me, and embraced me, all of you--and you all gave me the home and the family for which I have always longed. In that, I have found my purpose, I have at last answered my true calling as a daughter of Hydaelyn. I cannot say I am well pleased by Hades, or by what he has done, but neither can I condemn him, for in so doing I would condemn myself. How can I possibly say he is any less deserving of the grace I myself did not deserve? And what good might he accomplish were he given it, the way I was?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you forgotten he robbed you of your family in the first place?” Thancred asked, his voice raising an incredulous octave. “The whole of Coerthas lies buried in eternal winter because of Garlemald and the Calamity it so callously instigated in the name of the Emperor’s campaign to subjugate we </span>
  <em>
    <span>savages</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I most certainly have not,” Ysayle replied coldly. “But it was not Emet-Selch hardened the heart of the Count de Durendaire against the people of Falcon’s Nest, leaving us abandoned to freeze alone in the snow—the old and infirm, women and children besides. The Ascians are responsible for many evils in this world—and you need not lecture Lady Iceheart on them, Thancred, for I shall curse the name of Igeyorhm so long as I draw breath and rejoiced verily in her demise. But there are as yet many more evils in which the Ascians have laid naught a shadowy hand. We should all do well to remember that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thancred balked, throwing his hands in the air, then turned to Haurchefant, who’d remained strangely silent through all of this. “Surely </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> must see reason, here?”  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For a given definition, mayhap,” Haurchefant replied. “Ah, Thancred...do not misunderstand me: I see the truth in what you say, and I concur with it. Among us all, mayhap only I have so thoroughly and so grievously suffered the consequences of Ascian scheming as much as you. I bear the physical proof of it upon my very person and shall do so for the rest of my days. Were it not for Lahabrea’s vile entreaties in the Archbishop’s ear, the Heavens Ward would not have partaken of blasphemous powers, and my belly might not be so ruinously marred, my nerves not so enflamed to this day. In short, I would be whole, if not for that so-called Paragon, and I cannot say that I particularly mourn him. But his actions were but a mere part of a grander, loathsome design; I know this well having since become a Scion. And the Architect of that grander, loathsome design now--against all odds or reason--sits in our salon drinking our tea and begging we overlook all of this, somehow. Fate must surely mock us, that he should live whilst so many good and noble heroes do not—Papalymo, Moenbryda, Minfilia, Archon Leveilleur himself. How many more have sacrificed everything to thwart his aims, whilst he lives to drink our tea and entreat us for mercy even he himself admits he does not deserve? It </span>
  <em>
    <span>defies</span>
  </em>
  <span> all reason, all sense of justice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele sat brooding in silence at Haurchefant’s harsh words, for she knew every last one of them was true, and she herself had considered such truths countless times. They were the root from which her guilt grew to choke her heart like a vine, when first she realized Emet had stolen a piece of it despite everything. That it was such a simple thing to forget, in the face of what he had grown to mean to her—what they had meant to one another, another life ago—made her curse her very nature once more, that she should be so readily capable of disregarding atrocity and pain, even such sins committed against those she loved and cherished most, and see the good in such a man who would rightly be called a monster, and so choose to fight for that good despite everything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She lowered her head, wrapping her arms about her own waist, unable to meet Haurchefant’s piercing gaze.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thancred, however, stood nodding in grim satisfaction in her periphery. “Then you concur that he must—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Forgive me, for I know betimes I talk overmuch, but pray allow me to finish, my friend,” Haurchefant interrupted him, raising a firm hand. “All of what you say, I know well, and cannot gainsay it. Still, since long before I was a Scion of the Seventh Dawn, I have been a knight of Ishgard, raised to hate and fear Dravanians for a thousand years of atrocity. I have, of a surety, lost count of how many I put to the sword in the blessed name of Halone, for House Fortemps, all for the protection of my people. Since I was old enough to take up a wooden practice sword and shield in tiny hands, I yearned to become a knight to protect my House and my city in the war my people fought blindly for a thousand years. And as Lord Commander of Camp Dragonhead, I watched heretic after heretic be marched by Halonic Inquisitors through the courtyard on the way to meet their end at Witchdrop—with some satisfaction, I might add, believing it was all for the greater good. For I so trusted the Archbishop, and trusted in the truths we had been taught for generations, as any loyal Ishgardian would.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Haurche, I honestly don’t see what any of this has to do with our present quandary,” Thancred said, shrugging with a quirk of his eyebrows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You would if you knew how many men I lost to the Harriers, good men of House Fortemps and mercenaries alike. And despite all of it, I found myself not long ago raising my shield to protect the very leader of the heretics herself, as she desperately sought to quell her followers in a riot I later learned was orchestrated by the Archbishop himself. And shortly thereafter I stormed the very seat of power in the Holy See to save a man I loved dearly, from the Heavens Ward, the paragons of knightly virtue! Now, I have traversed two worlds with Ysayle, fighting by her side, and deem her the sister I never had and always wanted,” Haurchefant continued. “You ask of me what import the Dragonsong War should have in this matter? Mine answer is to ask how it should be any more absurd for me to trust Emet-Selch than it was to trust Lady Iceheart. Those in whom I placed my loyalty were the basest deceivers, and those whom I despised were true. The Fury’s ways are mysterious indeed, my friend. Who am I to question that <em>this</em> absurdity is no less a part of Her design?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ishgardians,” Thancred muttered under his breath. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Haurchefant rose to his feet, crossing the room to grip Thancred’s shoulder with a firm, strong hand, smiling down upon him. “Need I remind you that all of this chanced to happen because a kindly sorceress sought my aid and I fell madly in love with her? Gisele has taught me much and more of the world, my friend, but none so much that love is truly our salvation. That she should find it even for Emet-Selch does not surprise me in the least. I do not pretend to entirely trust him, Thancred—but I trust her. And he saved her life. That is proof enough of his intentions, for me. He saved the life of the woman I swore before the Fury to love and protect all the days of my life, when I could not—the woman we </span>
  <em>
    <span>both love</span>
  </em>
  <span>, my friend. There is no greater calling for a knight, and that is enough for me to deem him a comrade, no matter what else he has done. It is all the common ground I need, with him. And mayhap the Fury spared him his life for such a reason as this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Wordlessly, Gisele rose to her feet and crossed the distance between them to wrap her arms about his waist, hugging him tightly from behind. “Never change, Haurche,” she said with all sincerity, her heart swelling with warmth as she clung to him, her cheek resting upon his back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Haurchefant smiled. “A knight lives to serve, my lady.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Gracious me, he talks more than Lahabrea did when you get him started,” Hades chuckled. “Though far more eloquently, I should say. But I thank you for the kindness of your testimony nonetheless, ser knight.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thancred, for his part, was as silent as the grave, brooding on Haurchefant’s words. Mayhap a nerve was struck, for he had no clever retort on hand, no ready objection to what the knight had said; only a distant expression, as though he were lost in thought. Gisele believed with all her heart that it was the single argument for which Thancred was incapable of countering, for it spoke deep to resonate with what he held to be truest, what he valued most. More than once, Haurchefant had proclaimed Thancred possessed the heart of a true knight; and there was no greater compliment, to this proud son of Ishgard. But it was more than mere flattery. Thancred would do anything to protect his friends, to defend those who could not defend themselves. Mayhap it was why he was so reluctant to accept Hades’ entreaties. And he feared greatly for Gisele; he’d said as much, on the First. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The silence was broken by a most unexpected voice, one trembling a bit with nerves, but clear as day: that of G’raha Tia, their newest member, though it seemed to Gisele after so much toil and struggle in the First, he had been with them all along.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know that I’ve only just joined this esteemed order, and I’m not certain how much say I should have as a result, but…” he began, wringing his hands a little, but Gisele smiled warmly at him, and placed a reassuring hand upon his shoulder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We all of us have a say, Raha,” Gisele said firmly. “Your voice matters here, as much as anyone else’s—mayhap more, given your life’s purpose was forever changed with the future you were charged to unravel. As such, we value any counsel you would give on the matter. And your feelings, as well.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Raha blushed, his ears twitching a bit, and he nodded, pursing his lips a moment before speaking once more. “Perhaps, with age, I have become overly philosophical in my estimation...but I had a great deal of time to contemplate such things during my Amaurotine captivity, at any rate. And, quite remarkably, I came to realize that there was truly only the most razor-thin margin which separated myself from Emet-Selch. We both carried the terrible burden of our people’s memory, the memory of a fallen world, and it drove us to right things no matter the cost. We both used you to further our designs, and I bitterly repent what I did, no matter the purity and sincerity of my intentions, or that things turned out alright in the end. What’s more...I have also seen quite enough death and suffering in my time. That much of it was by his design no longer matters to me. For this cycle of enmity, of calamity, will </span>
  <em>
    <span>never</span>
  </em>
  <span> end unless one of us takes the first step. If he would do so? I would meet him halfway. His death would not bring back those who were lost, it would not reverse the Flood, nor restore the lands which were ravaged. It would not free the subjugated people of the Empire, or undo the Rejoining of worlds. But his life may as yet attempt to redress these ills. Let us judge his sincerity, and give him the chance to permit his deeds to speak for him,” the former Exarch said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t believe this. That you of all people, Raha…” Alisaie said, shaking her head in disgust. “Even setting aside what transpired on the First, and the future we fought so hard to avoid, my grandfather gave his life, his very </span>
  <em>
    <span>soul</span>
  </em>
  <span>, to save Eorzea—to stop Garlemald. Nearly every danger, every threat that Eorzea has ever faced has had Emet-Selch as its ultimate progenitor. I have seen what the Empire has wrought across two continents. How do we simply forget these things? Why should we?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“All knowledge is worth having,” Urianger said quietly. “Tis the axiom by which I hath lived, the North star by which I hath set the very course of mine existence. I believeth with all that I am, as our beloved Master Louisoix once did, that there is no more nobler a pursuit save to use such knowledge to preserveth and guard fast that which thou holdest dear. Verily, the Paragon we once deemed Emet-Selch, Angel of Truth, was the bitterest and most diabolical of foes. He hath wrought unspeakable suffering across worlds, raising up nations to sow discord wheresoever he may attend. This, I dare not deny. And yet…I find that I cannot so easily cast aside his entreaties. For is this not the purpose for which </span>
  <em>
    <span>I </span>
  </em>
  <span>played a gambit with his recently departed brother Emissary? To understand aught of Ascian designs, and the Ascian mind, and in so doing, mayhap unlock the key to defeating them? Of a surety, I regret mine subterfuge, and shall beg thy forgiveness evermore. But shouldst thou demand of me to deny one who might surely come in peace, bearing with him all the knowledge of his departed kin, and seeking to make recompense, however impossible, for the evils he hath wrought? I fear that is a price I am unwilling to pay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Y’shtola nodded in fervent agreement. “I agree that perhaps he might never be forgiven his crimes, nor can atonement ever truly be made for them. But I have not forgotten how he once sought to find common ground with us once before, for all our disdain. And Urianger is also right. He is truly the last of his kind, the last unbroken connection to the unsundered world, as it once was. There is much and more we could learn from him, and mayhap in doing so, we might strive ever closer to our goal. Is this not our mission as Archons? Our life’s work? Gisele made him a promise to remember the world that was. How better than to receive its final witness, and continue the ancient legacy of which he at last deemed us worthy? Even if we should falter in the attempt, we must always try.” She paused, gazing out across the table at Krile, who'd sat drinking her own tea in silent contemplation of their guest the entire time. “Would you agree, Krile?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I…” Krile began, then sighed, setting down her cup. “I truly cannot say. I bore witness to horrors in Gyr Abania, and had them visited upon me, that I won’t soon forget—Garlean horrors. But...I also hear your words, and those of our friends, and your reasoning is sound. I cannot well dismiss such a notion out of hand, for doing so would be a betrayal of every ideal I have ever held dear. I suppose I need more time to consider it, for my head is at odds with my heart in this matter, it seems.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What on earth is there to consider? I can’t believe we’re even </span>
  <em>
    <span>having</span>
  </em>
  <span> this conversation! What’s the matter with everyone? Have you all lost the bloody plot?” Alisaie cried, pushing off the wall—with her brother’s prudent, cautioning hand upon her shoulder. To her credit, she did not take a single step further toward Hades, though her hands had balled into fists. “This, this…</span>
  <em>
    <span>monster</span>
  </em>
  <span> tried to kill us! He has spent thousands of years plotting, scheming, leaving a trail of blood across worlds beyond measure. All because we are little more than insects to his ancient, eldritch eyes. What honestly makes you believe this isn’t just another scheme? That he isn’t manipulating us to his own ends, even now? We would be fools to suffer him to live, much less join us!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Killing him won’t bring your grandfather back, girl.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Estinien’s voice was quiet, and characteristically brusque, when he spoke at last, and all eyes in the room fell upon him when he did; he was leaned back against the bar not far from where Thancred stood, resting back upon his hands. Alisaie’s eyes narrowed, glaring daggers at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Choose your next words carefully, Estinien,” she said coldly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Estinien chuckled lightly under his breath at her implied threat, shaking his head. It was no mockery, thus; Gisele, well familiar with his quirks, knew it for a manner of self-deprecation. More than once, in private conversation, he confided that he saw much of his younger self in the headstrong young mage, and mayhap that was why he’d taken such an interest in mentoring her, beyond his well noted affection for her brother.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the brief expression of irony which danced across his sharp features faded, and in its place was one uncommonly gentle, empathetic. “All my life I hungered for vengeance, only to discover how a bitter fruit it is, once tasted,” Estinien said solemnly. “As bitter as the lies upon which we supped all unwitting for a thousand years. It all turned to ash upon my tongue, for Nidhogg’s demise did not return my family to me. I spilled the blood of enough dragons to drown Coerthas and Dravania both, seven times over, and what did it avail me? Ysayle was right to call me a butcher, and I cared not, not until it was too late.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You did these things in defense of your people,” Alisaie objected.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“By his own words, did </span>
  <em>
    <span>he</span>
  </em>
  <span> not?” Estinien asked, with a shrug, jerking his head slightly in Hades’ direction. “I once viewed dragonkind much the same way as he saw mortals: little more than feral, unconscionable beasts, monsters worthy of aught but steel. And it was that very hatred which left me vulnerable to Nidhogg’s possession. Let anger be your strength, aye, but have a care that it not consume you, nor blind you to the possibilities before you. It consumed me too long, and were it not for my comrades, it still might.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Estinien…” Ysayle said, raising her hand to her heart. Estinien smiled at her, with a little incline of his head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tis well I gained a sister, despite our one time animosity. Besides, if I could place my trust in Lady Iceheart, and the Black Wolf…?” Estinien shrugged once more, spreading his hands wide. Gisele’s heart swelled to see the simple kindness in Estinien’s expression, as he leveled his steely gaze upon Hades. “We have not lived the same life, by any measure, but I cannot help but see somewhat of myself in your words. I know from the ache of disillusionment, of the loss of self, that comes when your most closely held truths are stripped away, and you find that your life’s very purpose has been for naught. It took too long for me to find a measure of peace, and I would not have done it without the care of three lovelorn fools who never gave up on me, no matter how poorly I treated them, or how little I deserved their love. Would that Gisele’s might do the same for you as it did me. I am a far better man for it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades was silent a long moment, before lowering his eyes to place his hand upon his heart, and bowing his head to Estinien. “I thank you, Crimson Dragoon. Your sentiments mean more to me than mere words could ever express,” he said softly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Estinien, for his part, snorted wordlessly, and leaned back against the bar.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alisaie was silent a long while, with her head bowed, pensively chewing her lip. And then she glanced up, across the room, to Hades. “Why should we believe a single word you say?” she asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades stared at her, his sharp brows furrowed into a grave expression, with no hint of the indolence or mischief he was wont to possess. “In all the time we spent together upon the First, even at the last, at my most wretchedly villainous, did I ever once play you false?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alisaie shook her head. “No. I cannot fairly say that you did.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Correct. And I have no intention of starting now,” Hades added firmly. “I cannot force you to believe in my sincerity, nor my contrition, profound though they both might be, however. I can only say, well and simply, that I know now that I was wrong. I have been wrong for a thousand, thousand years, and no word of recrimination, no onze of condemnation, no bitter curse any of you could possibly hurl at me in justified wrath can compare to the emptiness, the sorrow, that this starkest of realizations has stirred within me. It is a new manner of grief, fresh and bitter, to have His scales so fall from mine eyes, to realize at last—and far too late—that I have erred in the most grievous ways possible. That my life’s purpose was decided for me, the moment we elected to make the will of the Star manifest and summon our god.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You speak as though you’re no longer tempered,” Thancred said, breaking his long silence with a thoroughly piercing stare.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele crossed the room to Alisaie’s side. “Because he isn’t. Our Blade of Light—Ardbert’s, and mine—severed the cord, as it were,” she explained.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No small number of gasps were audible among those gathered. And Y’shtola’s colorless eyes went distant a moment as they fell upon Hades, the way they always did when drifting to second sight. “Gisele speaks truth…naught of Zodiark’s hand remains upon his aether. Where once there was aught but dark fog, and shadow, there is…clarity. Truly, ’tis clear as a mountain lake.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Krile stared long and hard at Hades, pursing her lips in deep thought. “This may well change everything, then,” she mused aloud. “So far as I’m aware, never has there been any record of one recovering from being tempered. The very thought defies imagination, and is worthy of investigation.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hades…if you are </span>
  <em>
    <span>truly</span>
  </em>
  <span> sincere in your desire to make amends, and are willing to lend us your knowledge…?” Alisaie started, lowering her eyes in thought. “Beq Lugg’s research, his treatments for Halric showed promise. But, Gods...if we could at last find a true cure for tempering, it would help so many. Perhaps even…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ga Bu,” Gisele said softly, finishing her thought for her. Alisaie nodded, with a faint smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes. And for him, I could swallow down my pride, my feelings,” she declared. “For all those we might save.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thancred turned away a moment, his eyes pensive, before tilting his head back to look at Hades, who rather casually poured himself another cup of tea, seemingly heedless of the discussion around and about him. “Something yet troubles me, in all this,” Thancred said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh?” Hades asked, taking another sip.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just how you managed to pull off the trick of the era,” Thancred said. “You were decidedly vague, when Alphinaud and Urianger questioned you on it—on how you yet walk among us.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The corners of Alphinaud’s mouth curled into a frown, as he furrowed his brow. “You mentioned somewhat of the Crystal of Azem, that you imbued it with powerful magicks. Pray, I do not mean to diminish Gisele's prodigious abilities, but you also made it quite clear on any number of occasions on the First how incapable we fractured mortals are of wielding the Creation magicks of the Ancients. How, then, was she able to unlock the power of that crystal?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why don’t you ask your heroic friend,” Hades said with a nonchalant shrug, sipping from his tea. He gazed up at Gisele, then, suddenly, his eyes grown wide. And then he laughed, doubling over the table a little, in a sudden fit of hysterics. “Oh, you naughty little minx! You never told them, did you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“About?” Gisele raised her brows at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As was his wont, his laughter ceased as quickly as it came over him, his expression turning in an instant from unfettered amusement to sentimental affection.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who you were. Who you </span>
  <em>
    <span>truly</span>
  </em>
  <span> are,” Hades said softly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In truth, Gisele had not. It had not been a deliberately kept secret—she would never do such a thing, for the cornerstone of all her relationships, much less with the Scions, was honesty. She would not, </span>
  <em>
    <span>could not</span>
  </em>
  <span> so withhold a staggering truth such as this, or otherwise dissemble to the ones she held so dear. In recounting her final struggle with Elidibus, she spoke candidly of all that transpired, including Hades gallantly coming to her rescue at her darkest hour, trapped and helpless in the Void between life and death, to free her and those loved ones she had summoned from across time and the cosmos to fight at her side, one last time. If it were a lie, it was one of omission, and not malicious in intent; rather, Gisele found her own eloquence failing before the enormity of such a truth. She could scarce comprehend it herself, so how might she begin to explain to her comrades that she was the Sundered reincarnation of not merely an ancient Amaurotine, but the one whom their direst foe had held dearest?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Being born of Thedas, and not the Source, seemed comparatively trite a truth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And so Gisele did not find the words, and so kept this secret locked within her heart, not even to reveal it to those she held dearest among the Scions—her husbands, her lovers. She told herself again and again that she should make the time to do so, that she should find the words, but she could not, these past days.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A convenient excuse, in truth, for in the deepest recesses of her heart, Gisele feared telling Haurchefant and Estinien most of all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As she feared telling Thancred; the suspicion within his eyes as they pierced through her gave rise to those fears once more, and Gisele swallowed hard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What is he on about--” he began to ask her, but stopped himself at the sudden, simultaneous cry of Krile and Ysayle; both women clamped their eyes shut and clutched their heads in an agony all too familiar to Gisele, and her heart sank, knowing what it should portend.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Echo illumined all before its incandescent brilliance, whether one willed it or no.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And when it was over, after an interminably long and terrible moment, when Krile and Ysayle lowered their hands and stared at one another with wide eyes struck with awe, Gisele felt knots churn within her belly, as she knew that nothing would be as it was for her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did you…?” Krile asked Ysayle, her voice terribly small and distant.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ysayle nodded slowly, and when she turned her gaze to Gisele, her icy blue eyes stood shimmering with unshed tears. Her jaw trembled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” Gisele whispered, her heart pounding in her ears. “I’m so sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bewildered, Haurchefant glanced back and forth between them, his eyes a bit wild. “What is the meaning of this? Pray, Ysayle, what did your vision reveal?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A love for the ages,” Ysayle replied enigmatically, her voice broken, and Gisele’s heart sank as she witnessed tears pour down Krile’s round cheeks; Alphinaud reached into his pocket, offering her a handkerchief woven of fine white linen, before kneeling to embrace her warmly in comfort. Gisele swallowed hard, guilt rising up in her, threatening to consume her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Urianger was the first to turn to her. “It is as I hath suspected, then,” he said softly, and gently took Gisele’s hands into his own. “The Fourteenth Seat of the Convocation…was it not thine, my lady?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele closed her eyes, unable to bear his tender expression of a moment; she felt herself trembling in his grasp, and try as she might, she could not will the palsy in her hands to cease. “Of all the phantoms of Amaurot, there was but one who knew the illusion for what it was, a city of the dead which Emet-Selch conjured in grief from his memory, as a testament to the world he so loved and so cruelly lost. I met Hythlodaeus when first we traversed those haunted streets, when we sought to save Raha. It was then he told me that Ardbert and I were fragments of the same fractured soul: an Amaurotine woman once known well to himself and to Emet-Selch, who once sat the Convocation of Fourteen but fled it rather than partake of summoning Zodiark. She was a woman Hythlodaeus loved as a sister, and whom Emet-Selch loved desperately, beyond measure. Yet I did not know her name—my name—until weeks later, when I stood holding that crystal in my palm, before the might of Elidibus, and invoked her magicks. </span>
  <em>
    <span>My</span>
  </em>
  <span> magicks, which Emet-Selch poured into it, and with all the love of his broken heart.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You were Azem,” Haurchefant whispered, his eyes wide. “By the Fury, Gisele…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A rather important detail you neglected to mention in your accounts, my </span>
  <em>
    <span>dearest</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Thancred said, and Gisele shrank back a little, at the acid in his tone. “Were you planning on sharing this little tidbit before, or after the fact—that you’re also Emet-Selch’s reincarnated lover?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mind your tongue, Waters!” Estinien barked, and it did somewhat to put some steel back in Gisele’s spine. She gently extricated herself from Urianger’s grasp, and turned to face Thancred; his cheeks had grown flushed, his eyes hard as agates. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was his lover enough in </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span> life,” Gisele said coolly. “What should it matter to you what came before? Are you my keeper, now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She instantly regretted those words, however, as soon as they passed her lips; for when they did, Thancred’s eyes grew a little wide, as though he had taken a sudden, sharp blade to his vitals. Shock turned to hurt. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What should it matter, indeed,” Thancred said rather shortly, and it seemed a world of pain lay hidden between such short words. Old, bitter pain she thought he’d left behind in the sands of Amh Araeng, when they had at last reconciled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele strode slowly to him, and placed a gentle, affectionate hand upon his bare shoulder, stroking it just a little. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Forgive me, love,” she said softly. “That was unkind.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thancred looked away from her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Haurchefant had remained silent, reeling from the revelation, and brooding upon it until the moment he lifted his eyes to stare at Hades. “The names by which we have always known your kind are titles, and it stands that Azem is yet another such. What was her true name, as Hades is yours?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Müllenkamp,” Hades replied, his voice grown soft and tender in that manner he reserved for her alone. “Though betimes I called her Osana, which meant ‘beautiful’. And she was as I said: the brightest in a constellation of stars, always. Azem’s charge was quite unlike the rest of the Convocation, for she was tasked with learning all she could of the world beyond our fair city. She wandered endlessly, across the four corners of the star, and wherever she went, people were drawn to her warmth and light.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Some things never change, I suppose,” Estinien said a bit wryly, smiling softly upon her, and Gisele’s bronze cheeks grew flushed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Müllenkamp...where have I heard that name before,” Alphinaud mumbled to himself. “It seems dreadfully familiar…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She was a Zodiac Brave of ancient Ivalice,” Y’shtola answered. “The mother of your Kriegstanz, Gisele, if I recall correctly, born in the city of Lèa Monde.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele nodded. “Mistress Nashmeira bestowed her crystal upon me, when first I joined Troupe Falsiam,” she said. “It was their most sacred relic, passed down through generations. All they had were tales, regarding the Mother of the Dance, save that crystal, passed to her descendants.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It may as yet stand to reason that, as the name ‘Azem’ hath lived on through boundless ages, across myriad and diverse cultures, so too hath ‘Müllenkamp’ passed into legend, in the fleeting memories of sundered mortals, who yearn all unknowing for her, and as yet honor her storied legacy, though the reason be beyond their ken,” Urianger mused. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Thancred turned his gaze upon Hades. “You knew the whole time, didn’t you?” he accused him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“From the moment I first saw you all at Laxan Loft,” Hades replied gravely. “I would know that soul anywhere, even should it be fractured. It fair dazzles like the sun, even now. As it always has.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Krile sniffled into Alphinaud’s handkerchief, and took a deep breath to steady herself. “You’ve mourned her for ten thousand years, haven’t you?” she asked softly, her voice trembling a little. “Dear gods, I can’t imagine…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. You most certainly can not,” Hades said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Was that your game, then? To test Gisele, to use her--all to bring back your dead lover, and damn the consequences?” Thancred demanded. He narrowed his eyes in a withering glare. “Is that your game, now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades made a weary sigh, shaking his head, and set his teacup down; he rested his elbows upon the table, lacing his long, slender fingers together, and looked up at him with the curve of his mouth turned to a frown, his golden eyes crestfallen. “I know this might be terribly difficult for you to fathom, Thancred, but I play no game to speak of, here. I say what I mean, and I mean what I say. And yes, it was my hope—my vain, foolish hope—that Gisele might reclaim her full potential. Not merely because I once made a life with her in the old world, but also because I spoke plainly when I said that I'd waited long for one who might brave a path of lesser tragedy. In Gisele, I saw such strength—mayhap for the first time in an age. But it was not merely memories of Müllenkamp, or the legacy of Azem, which called to me, in her. Perhaps it was in the beginning, but…” He closed his eyes, with a shudder, breathing long and deep, and smiled ruefully, with a self deprecating little snort. “You’ve no conception of what it means to endure such solitude, such grief, bearing the weight of one’s sins until they threaten to crush you, only to be suddenly granted a reprieve with which you’ve no inkling how to handle. Oh, but I wore the jester’s mask as a fine mummery, but tis all it was, in truth.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thancred stared an interminable moment at Hades, in a veritable age of silence. “I know it more than you might assume, Hades,” he said at last, with quiet empathy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades snorted, though not so much in derision as self-deprecation, Gisele thought. “Mayhap. But your will has ever been your own, Thancred Waters--your </span>
  <em>
    <span>life</span>
  </em>
  <span> has ever been your own. All I have done, all I have wrought these long years has been in service to the memory of my people, to their restoration, that we might know joy, and peace, and love, once more. I could not permit myself to falter, I could not lose sight of what it was that truly mattered. Were I to cast that aside, even </span>
  <em>
    <span>could</span>
  </em>
  <span> I cast that aside, it would mean all of that sacrifice, all of that suffering, would have been for naught. But if Gisele could contain the Light, if she could be raised back to where she belonged…I would not have had to do so.” Hades sighed again, returning to his cup.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I could not,” Gisele said, her voice cracking as a lump formed within her throat. And then Haurchefant came to her side, without speaking a word, to draw her into his strong embrace. She lost herself in the circle of his muscular arms, and clung tightly to his waist, burying her face a moment within the fine silk brocade of his crimson shirt, inhaling deeply his familiar and comforting scent—of clove and musk, and the faint hint of ambergris from his cologne. And she felt his hand upon the crown of her curls, stroking them slowly, again and again, before she shifted slightly, and rested her head against his shoulder. Still, he held her, even as her eyes fell back to Hades.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, you could not. And I felt my heart shattering for a second time, for when I saw you stumbling as those hopeless, mad creatures, I thought my hopes and dreams dashed. The future for which I so toiled—one with you in it, at my side, as we once were...it crumbled to ash before my very shrouded eyes,” Hades replied. “The promise you held, the stirrings of my heart…in that moment were they made the cruelest of lies. And I heard my Lord’s voice within, reverberating in all its sadness, that I had deluded myself all along in believing you could be anything more than the hollow shell of the woman I once gave my heart to so readily; an incomplete, bitter mockery. He grieved with me, and told me this was why we fought, why we </span>
  <em>
    <span>must</span>
  </em>
  <span> continue to fight. There could never be any compromise with you and your kin, you pitiful creatures. And I believed Him, for His will—His thoughts, his Hopes, were mine. There was no place in them for Gisele Surana, Daughter of Hydaelyn.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shackled by delusions of one’s own making…” Ysayle muttered, sighing, with a sorrowful shake of her head. If any among their number—if any on life—knew well of which the Ascian spoke, it was Ysayle Dangoulain, Gisele thought to herself, as her lips curled into a little frown.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele felt Haurchefant’s arms tighten around her, then, squeezing her tightly. “I knew that manner of impotent rage for what it was, Hades,” Haurchefant said. “Twas the surest and most painful manner of grief…an anger, turned upon oneself, for one’s own folly, one’s own failure. Though I did not know from whence it came, at the time, I understand it all too well, now. You could not save her—not so long ago, and not upon Mt. Gulg.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades shrugged, and gazed up at the ceiling, staring at somewhat Gisele could not know. “What is a Knight bereft of his Sorceress?” he asked, and she recognized it for a quote from the Leonhart Romances, the final words of the fallen Ser Almasy, disgraced and solitary, before he flung himself from the white cliffs of La Noscea into the sea.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As Haurchefant did recognize it, for he so thoroughly devoured those tales as well, himself. “You are no Almasy, Hades. You did not fail her,” he said firmly. “Then, or now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades shut his eyes, turning from them with a sigh. “But I was set free, by a Blade of Light. I saw with unclouded eyes and an unobstructed mind for the first time in a thousand, thousand years. And I understood how very wrong I was. How very wrong was that Purpose to which we had been so enthralled. That there was no returning to that which once was. Yet, the grief I have carried these long years…I found it lifted from my shoulders in that moment, that final moment when I looked upon you all.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is that, in the end, why you at last deemed us worthy of carrying on the legacy of the Ancients, despite everything?” Y’shtola asked quietly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades looked at her, upon each of the Scions by turns, letting his thoughtful gaze fall upon each of them one after the other, considering them in silence before speaking once more. “We believed ourselves as Gods among insects, we Paragons; in our overweening hubris, fed by the implacable and unyielding will of our Master, we saw naught of value within this shattered world, merely a mockery to us of all that we lost and all that I yet grieved. I said to you once before that I tried, time after time, life after life, to adapt to the horrors of the broken world—to find some glimmer of light by which I could hope to move on. But I understand now, rather bitterly, that Lord Zodiark would not permit it, for it was anathema to His grand design. I could not see such a light, even faint, because of my tempered state. And when I found myself free of it—of Him—I at last grasped the truth: that the spirit of my beloved Amaurot, the essence of what it truly was, lives on as yet within you mortals, sundered and imperfect though you might be by comparison. It never truly perished. I see it in each of you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His words brought to Gisele’s mind the memory of his wistfulness in Kholusia, when the people of Norvrandt came together at the Scions’ behest to build a Talos the likes of which the First had never seen, to open the way to Mt. Gulg and therein Vauthry, last of the Lightwardens. It was a feat only made possible through the bonds of friendship they’d made along the way upon their journey, and a testament to just how many lives they had touched for the better, and not only in the grandest of ways.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then, Hades’ amber eyes fell upon Gisele, and he smiled affectionately. “How remarkable a thing, that you should so honor your ancient charge with more grace and tenacity than we who were Unsundered, o sundered Traveler, and made quite the fool of this Architect. Across three worlds, have you shone the light of hope, with band upon band of devoted companions to stand against horrors quite beyond your comprehension. And in so doing, have you inspired greatness within all who bask in your light, inspiring them to surpass their mortal limitations, their frailties, to ever grasp for the infinite even should it prove beyond their reach…and, occasionally, it is, and they perform feats that even </span>
  <em>
    <span>we</span>
  </em>
  <span> never achieved.” At the last, Gisele marked well—and with no small amusement—Hades’ sheepish grin toward Raha, who returned it with quite the self-satisfied feline smirk and a hint of gleaming fang. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t do it alone. We are far more than the sum of our individual parts, Hades,” Raha said simply. “And together, we can accomplish far more than we could ever hope to by our lonesome. One need only gaze up at the mighty Talos of Kholusia—and the Crystal Tower in Lakeland—to heed that particular lesson.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ever doth we stand upon the shoulders of those who toiled before us,” Urianger agreed. “As those who may as yet succeedeth us shall stand upon our own, in time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you people wonder why I’m here,” Hades said, with a light chuckle, before taking a long drink of his tea, finishing off the cup with a contented little sigh. “Honestly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alisaie spoke up then, raising her eyebrows toward Tataru. “You’ve been awfully quiet, Tataru. You get a say too, you know,” she said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tataru shrugged. “I pay the 'Witch of Doma' to help me mind our ledger,” she said simply. “Who am I to object to His Radiance in the ranks? Besides, I think it’s best to keep him, if only to keep an eye on him. There’s strange things afoot in Garlemald, and he may prove helpful.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shrewd little thing, aren’t you?” Hades said approvingly. “I rather like you, I think.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thancred chuckled, shaking his head somewhat in disbelief, and then glanced at Gisele. “Well, that’s everyone, I should think. Inspector Hildibrand could even figure out where </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> stand on this matter, love, but it’s time for you to have your say. Do we take in this particular stray, or no?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Every eye within the Rising Stones fell upon Gisele, but she was steady in her conviction, and knew what she must do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let him serve,” Gisele said simply. “I have heard well your testimony, your grievances. Of a surety do I share them. But by word and deed, shall the purity of his intention be proven. It already has, for me, despite everything. And while I do not expect all of you to be so moved as I, but a chance is all he begs of us, and I am willing to grant him that small measure of grace. I only ask that you do the same, my friends--for the sake of my heart. Mayhap I truly am the flighty sorceress my many detractors in Thedas once said of me, but I cannot bear the thought of sending him away.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thancred stared long and hard at Hades, folding his arms across his chest as he did. It was a long moment before he spoke, quietly, and with great deliberation. “Forgive me my bluntness, but I would know your intentions, where Gisele is concerned. Far be it from me to think myself her keeper, not the way I’ve erred more times than I can count. But I've many regrets where my Lady Fortemps is concerned, and I would not add to them forsaking her protection when I could provide it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thancred…” Gisele said softly, a lump forming in her throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Krile coughed lightly. “Mayhap I should excuse myself? This seems to have taken a rather…personal turn.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Hades shrugged nonchalantly, finishing the rest of his tea with a rather casual final sip. “I’ve nothing to hide, Baldesion. Besides, it’s not as if half of you aren’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>also</span>
  </em>
  <span> hopelessly in love with her. T’would be a far simpler thing to count those who aren't.” He glanced up at Gisele with an impish glint in his eyes. “It was </span>
  <em>
    <span>never</span>
  </em>
  <span> dull keeping my eye on you, that’s for certain.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Hades!</span>
  </em>
  <span>” Gisele gasped, her face turning hot, her dark skin flushed—in mortification, of a surety, but also no small amount of intrigue at just what he might have seen when gazing upon her on the First. The sense of embarrassment faded when she chanced to meet Haurchefant’s curious eyes with her own; she knew that fire within them, and what it portended.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Hades laughed of a moment, idly smoothing out a wrinkle upon his fine silken shirt as he did, and when his laughter subsided, he turned back to level a gaze upon Thancred. “At any rate, I would be as candid as I have always been, particularly in a matter of such import as this,” Hades began. “I do love her, Thancred, whether you believe it or no. And I shall not pretend my motivations are entirely selfless, here, by any means. Oh yes, I do I wish to see what you mortals might do, as our worthy successors—but I also yearn for the simple pleasure of her company. In all the years we were together, I never chanced to accompany Azem upon a single one of her many journeys, and that has always been among my deepest regrets. And since I’ve been given this fresh start, I should like to do things rather differently this time. I wish to be by her side, if she will permit it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She’s not the woman you lost, Hades,” Estinien said—and with unwonted gentleness, Gisele thought, given he’d just held him at spearpoint some time before. “She’s my wife, and Haurchefant’s, and Aymeric’s. She’s Ysayle’s woman, and Thancred’s, and Urianger’s—and Hien’s. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Gisele has a life</span>
  </em>
  <span>, with her own hopes and dreams. And if you should deign insert yourself into it, you would do well to understand that. If you would love her, then love </span>
  <em>
    <span>her</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and not a ghost.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Haurchefant nodded in solemn, fervent agreement. “Indeed, my love. Hades…we none of us deem ourselves Gisele’s keeper, not even we who made sacred vows with her before Eorzea—or before the Night’s Blessed, as the case may be,” he said, glancing sidelong at Ysayle, who laughed softly beneath her breath at it. “But if there is a single thing we Scions share, beyond our great love for Eorzea and our desire to see her safe and protected—it is our love for this brave, remarkable woman who has touched each of our lives in the most profound ways. Of us all she perhaps needs the least protecting; nonetheless, we do so, and proudly, for she has given us the profoundest measure of joy by turns. Gisele is the very heart of our order—our heart, as comrades, and those of us fortunate to count ourselves among her lovers. If we seem jealous, pray, tis nothing of the sort; it is merely because we love her so fervently that we would protect her so fiercely. We would not—could not—see her hurt.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele looked about the room, her heart full and her eloquence gone; she could not help the twinge of guilt when she saw the fire in Raha’s scarlet eyes, knowing he felt much the same as they despite the unrequited nature of such feelings, but beyond that momentary pang, she felt tears welling at the corner of her eyes for altogether different reasons. She found her memory drifting back to Dravania, what now seemed a lifetime ago, when Estinien raged to see Nidhogg bind her during that terrible fight within the heart of the Aery, and hurled his spear against her fetters with all the might he ever brought to bear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She glanced unconsciously to Haurchefant’s belly, for though it was concealed by his customary Ishgardian finery, her eyes knew too well the faintly gleaming scar beneath it and how he earned it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And when the Light within her raged and nearly consumed her, it was Urianger who carried her unconscious form all the way down Mt. Gulg, and back to the Crystarium; as Ysayle recounted it, he cradled her in his arms, and all the while whispered his regrets with tears pouring down his cheeks. Gisele had no memory of this as such, only Ysayle’s recounting later on; but her memory drifted and thought of Ysayle, clad in a Primal’s power, staring down a Garlean’s dreadnought without an onze of hesitation or fear, quite literally taking a hail of fire for her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As she thought of Thancred…her protector mayhap longer than any of them, for even before she was as yet a Scion, or even knew who she truly was, he was her silent guardian in the shadows, even as he claimed he was merely taking her measure.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As she thought of Aymeric, within the Ghimlyt Dark, meeting a blade several times his size with his own, unflinching and unyielding, to protect her from a hulking Garlean colossus, as she called down the light of the stars to soothe Lyse’s wounds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As she thought of Hien, ever at her side in the Nadaam, his blade sharp and true against all who would deign tear her from sacred ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They all loved her so. As Gisele loved each of them in equal measure—and more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To her surprise, Hades rose to his feet, and she noted then that he stood straight-backed for once; when he did, he towered even over Haurchefant, and Gisele would never have believed that possible of anyone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know well your apprehension, ser knight. Nor I do at all fault you for it. But I shall swear upon everything I hold dear, upon the souls of my people, that I wish Gisele no harm. I would sooner die—again—than see her come to it. My love for Azem, my Müllenkamp, was what drove me to forge her crystal so long ago, to imbue it with her singular magicks, and a piece of mine own. But it was my love for Gisele that bade me come forth from the Underworld. It is why I am here, now. I would be the Architect once more, to shape this world at her side, with all of you—and for the better. I no longer see in it that which is no more, but the promise of what may yet be. Because of her love.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you indeed been so transformed by it?” Haurchefant asked, his brow furrowed intently.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades snorted in derision, and narrowed his eyes. "You’ve asked me, all of you, how I possibly could have defied fate and returned to save her. I shall pose a question to you in turn, Lord Haurchefant—to all of you who love Gisele, whether as friend, or sister, or wife, or paramour: how could I not?” Hades demanded, with a conviction no less intense for its quiet. “Each of you has been so transformed by her love. Why should I be any different? Do you doubt her that much?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Never,” Ysayle said fiercely. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hades relaxed his sharp brows then, and smiled. “How could I not love that gentle-hearted woman who embraced my brother in the end, and dried his tears, that he might at last be released from his burden and go to his rest knowing that he was not alone...how could I not love her?” he asked. He turned then, crossing the short distance between himself and Gisele in but half a lanky stride, and placed a gentle hand upon her cheek. “You did what I could not. You were with Elidibus, in the end, and freed him from that terrible burden of duty. You helped him to remember who he was. And if I did not love you before, Gisele, you have my immortal, undying gratitude for that singular act of mercy, of compassion—and for one who caused you no end of pain, besides. But I </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span> love you, Gisele. And I do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gisele clung to him, as he bent down to press his lips softly against her brow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Others may have found it passing strange—and terribly awkward—to have such a crushingly intimate moment in the presence of so many people. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not Gisele. For these were the people she so loved, one and all. They were her family. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Resting her cheek against Hades’ heart, she glanced up to witness Haurchefant leaned against Estinien, dabbing at the corner of his eyes with his handkerchief—the ever present scarlet unicorn embroidered stark against the fine white linen. And Estinien pressed his generous lips quick against Haurchefant’s pointed ear, before smiling wryly at Gisele. Before their loving gaze did all her myriad fears and trepidations seem so foolish of a moment, as they so often did, in the presence of her steadfast knights.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, Raha? I’m sorry I shot you, by the by,” Hades said, with a cheeky little grin. “Really, it was nothing at all personal. Not like when my grandson shot me. </span>
  <em>
    <span>That</span>
  </em>
  <span> I had coming, I’ll freely admit, but it was delightfully funny!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Raha, for his part, chuckled softly at first, then buried his face in his hand to stifle the laughter that rose up from him, shaking as he did. “You really are terribly insufferable, Hades. But I am willing to forgive you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thancred sighed deeply, and poured himself a stiff drink from one of the crystal decanters on the higher shelf; Gisele recognized it as Doman fire whiskey. “Why do I know we’ll live to regret this the rest of our lives,” he muttered, before downing the entirety of his glass.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come, now! I thought you mortals were meant to be optimists?” Hades asked, laughing. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Honestly</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Thancred. I’m not certain I want to join your little club anymore, if you insist on being such a relentless pessimist. Besides, frowning makes you look old.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Thus did Hades of Amaurot, the Ascian Paragon once known as Emet-Selch, and the founding Emperor Solus zos Galvus of Garlemald, become a Scion of the Seventh Dawn.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yes, I went with Ol' Blue Eyes for the title. Being a native New Yorker I can't help but associate my hometown with Amaurot, and I deeply associate Sinatra's music with Emet.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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